Further Reflections on Evil and Suffering
We ask “Why?” people in the Bible ask “How Long?”
Books about the problem of evil can be extremely frustrating because you know at the outset that, from a Christian point of view, the answer (if we can call it that) will involve the word “mystery.” N. T. Wright in Evil and the Justice of God says that his intention in that book is
“not so much to give answers to impossible philosophical questions as to bring signs of God’s new world to birth, on the basis of Jesus’ death and in the power of his Spirit, even in the midst of ‘the present evil age’” (p. 11).
So when I read books on this subject like N. T. Wright’s, I am not really looking for answers, but I hope that the author will help me think about the issues in a way that will help me conform my thinking to the to way the Bible thinks about them. When I read a book about the problem of evil, I hope to gain wisdom more than understanding, hope more than assurance that things will work out in this life. For I know that, sooner or later, my reflections will be tested by the hard reality of suffering or the sheer evilness of evil at a personal level. You cannot go for very long just thinking about evil and suffering without experiencing them.
I think this part of Chris Wright’s book The God I don’t Understand serves as a guide to thinking biblically about these things. That does not mean sweeping the nasty stuff under the rug; it means coping with the hard questions with the conviction that a Christian worldview is the best way for us to traverse through them.
If I were to summarize this part of the book, I would say that Wrights wants us to understand that God in His wisdom did not think it was necessary to reveal to us where evil (he makes a distinction between moral and natural) came from. This does not mean that the Bible has nothing to say about when evil first came into the world, but its origin is something it does not bother to explain. Since this raises the question about what the Bible DOES say about evil, Wright spends some time talking about the Bible’s diagnosis for moral evil which basically says that sin effected both humanity and creation and “puts the blame of suffering and evil where most of it primarily belongs, namely, on ourselves, the human race” (35). It then makes sense to talk about the devil or Satan and the fall of the angels. Although Wright spends a few pages on this aspect of evil, the conclusion is that the Bible tells us very little, so at the end our most common questions about the fall of the angels and preexisting evil go unanswered. It is simply not for us to know.
So why can’t we make sense of evil? Wright says it is because evil does not make sense.
“‘Sense’ is part of our rationality that in itself is part of God’s good creation and God’s image in us. So evil can have no sense, since sense itself is a good thing” (42).
Of course, moral evil is just part of it. What about natural evil like earthquakes and tsunamis? Here Wright is concerned about some of the “easy answers” we may want to give to this like God’s curse or His judgment. In the end, we just don’t know. So what do we do? We lament and protest. Well, this is what we should be doing but, as Wright points out, lament is played down in our churches today.
Wright concludes this part talking about three “great biblical truths” that we should hold together in our minds and in our faith: the utter “evilness” of evil, the utter goodness of God; and the utter sovereignty of God. The third chapter elaborates on all these truths using, for example, Joseph’s story, the cross and even the visions of Revelation to show that they are all held together.
Even if there aren’t any satisfactory answers, it is a great accomplishment to be able to cover as much as Chris Wright did in such a short section of the book. He could have probably written monographs on its different topics but I think he accomplished his main goals which, as I saw it, was to say evil does not make sense, the Bible does not give us all the answers we may want to have, but it does a have a few things to say and here is how we should think about them.
In books like this there is always something you wish was elaborated on a little more. If I were to pick a subject, it would probably be how the problem of evil is related to demonology, i. e., fallen angels (I’ve been interested in this subject since I read some literature on 1 Enoch and how it deals with evil). Although Wright wants to emphasize that there aren’t many places that talk about Satan and the origin of fallen angels, I think it is absolutely fascinating that the OT has so little to say about it and then 2nd Temple literature and the NT seem to give this subject a lot more attention. Some people see this change of emphasis as a way to explain the “problem of evil” given the situation of the Jews under oppression. They see a development in the way people conceived of evil and dealt with it (perhaps in a more dualistic fashion). It is telling that Wright mentions 2 Peter and Jude as one of the few places that has something to say about fallen angels but doesn’t say anything about 2nd Temple Judaism (which might have taken the focus off what he wanted to say). But for those who know that the concept of fallen angels was part of a larger cultural lore, it would be nice to try to understand what to make of this in terms of what the Bible has to say. Here is my question in light of Wright’s book: is there anything we can gain by asking how 2nd Temple Jews came to understand the problem of evil since this seems to be the background of the New Testament? If there is, then how do we explain the seemingly lack of interest in demonology in the OT?
The irony of my interest in this aspect of the problem of evil is that it probably shows that I haven’t suffered a lot (or enough) and that thinking about evil and suffering is still highly theoretical. That’s why I appreciate the fact that Wright did not dwell on these issues here but kept reminding me that at some point, even if I had the answers to these questions, they would not satisfy me completely. Only a deep-seated confidence in the utter goodness and sovereignty of God will help me get through those times when suffering knocks at the door.
